Babyville (26 page)

“Can I just ask one more thing?” Chris says, giving her a grateful smile. “Did it affect Dan? That fog you mentioned. Did it ever seriously affect your marriage?”

Jill pauses, unsure at this point what Chris wants to hear, but she has to tell the truth, and he'll be relieved, surely, to hear it. “No. I would say it was a definite rocky patch, but at no point did I ever think about walking out.” She smiles reassuringly, expecting Chris to be relieved. Surely she had said exactly what he needed to hear.

“And what about Dan?” Chris says, anxiety still etched upon his face. “Did he?”

 “Are
you sure I look okay?” Sam whispers again to Chris as they stand on the doorstep of Jill and Dan's house. She pulls her black tunic cardigan (Marks & Sparks—thank God for those tunics that hide a multitude of sins) down over her bottom and tries to pull it together at the front to no avail, so she wraps her blanket coat tightly around to disguise her weight.

Chris hoists George onto his hip as the front door opens, and a little girl stands there looking expectantly up at them. Behind her Dan smiles as he moves her gently out of the way and beckons them in.

“Chris, lovely to see you!” They have met a few times before. “This is Lily. You must be Sam. And the handsome George. Come in, come in. Welcome.” Sam extends a hand, but Dan leans down and kisses her on the cheek, putting an arm around her shoulders to guide her down the hallway.

And Sam feels something unexpected as he rests his hand on her shoulder. Something she hasn't felt for a very long time. A flush on her cheeks and a stirring in her loins that is immediately exciting. Ridiculous, she tells herself. A man who is reasonably attractive is attentive and kind, and resting his arm on my shoulder in what can only be a warm, hostlike manner, and I'm on my way to my first orgasm of the year.

“Sam!” Jill appears from the kitchen and embraces Sam warmly. Sam returns the embrace with gusto, for while she wants to hate Jill, wants to hate her for being slim, and happy, and glamorous, for having a beautiful home and a sexy husband, she finds she can't.

“It is so, so lovely to meet you. Did you find it okay? Come in and sit down while I put the kettle on. Did you notice your husband's handiwork in the hallway?” Jill bubbles away as Sam tries to keep up.

“And in here. Look. Isn't he clever? Aren't you lucky? Now I have to tell you, for someone with a seven and a half?” Sam nods. “Seven-and-a-half-month-old baby, you're looking gorgeous. How on earth do you do it?”

From anyone else, Sam might have questioned this statement. Would almost certainly have assumed it was sarcastic, but Jill has been there, and Jill knows what she needs to hear when she is still feeling fat and exhausted, and there is nothing but sincerity in her voice, and even as she speaks she sees Sam slowly unfurl.

“You are joking!” Sam laughs, but her smile is genuine. “I'm huge. Look! Enormous!”

“You're not,” Jill says. “You're gorgeous.”

“What about you? Lily's fourteen months and you look like you've just stepped off a catwalk.”

 “I knew
I'd like you, Sam!” Jill gives Sam's arm a squeeze and goes off to the kitchen to get tea ready.

“What shall I do with George?” Chris puts George on the floor, where he sits rather like a small chubby beanbag, slumped forward examining the pattern on the Persian rug. He falls on to one side and rolls over, moving his face closer to the pattern before slowly lowering his open mouth to try to eat a particularly appetizing red swirl.

“Oh George,” Sam says, scooping him up and covering him with kisses, “you cheeky little monkey,” and Chris smiles as he watches them. He can see that Jill has instantly put Sam at ease, and seeing her like this reminds him of the good times.

“Chris!” Jill calls from the kitchen. “Come and see the table. It's in here.”

Sam perches on the edge of the sofa as Dan walks back into the room. She pulls in her stomach, then lets it out, thinking how ridiculous she is being. She is a married woman, not to mention a mother, not to mention overweight.

She pulls her stomach in again.

Dan collapses next to her on the sofa, putting his feet on the coffee table, and she is instantly very aware of his proximity. His right leg is casually brushing her ample thigh, but he hasn't seemed to notice.

It is all she can think of.

“Lily is the light of my life,” he sighs, stretching lazily and resting one arm along the back of the sofa, “but what I wouldn't give to have a holiday right now.”

“God, tell me about it,” Sam says, in a voice that sounds, even to her, self-conscious. Go away, she is thinking. I cannot cope with such a dangerously attractive man so close to me who is making me think unsafe thoughts. Don't go, she is thinking. Stay to remind me of this feeling, to remind me that it is still possible, that I am not too old and boring to feel passion.

“Okay.” Dan smiles, taking her words literally as she turns to look at him. “Right now I would like to be lying on a hammock strung between a couple of palm trees on a deserted island in the Caribbean.”

“Glass of rum punch brought out to you by a besuited waiter?” Sam smiles, enjoying skipping small talk, enjoying the false intimacy this line of conversation is creating.

“Good idea!” he laughs. “What about you?”

“White sand. Turquoise water. Hot, hot, hot. I would be in a bikini, having lost all my pregnancy weight finally”—she didn't mean to say that, but she needed him to know she didn't always look like this—“and I would be lying in the surf to cool down.”

“If that's pregnancy weight you should keep it,” Dan says, and even though she knows he's just being nice, a part of her hopes it's more, hopes he might be flirting with her. “It suits you.”

She flushes.

“And what are you two up to?” Jill walks into the living room, carrying a tray of tea, biscuits, and cakes, none of which, Sam suddenly decides, she will be eating.

“Nothing much.” Dan stretches again as Sam tries to will the heat out of her cheeks. “Just sharing fantasies. You wouldn't be interested.”

Chris raises an eyebrow. He doesn't say anything at all.

26

Chris is delighted.
The morose Sam of these past few months has been transformed in the last few days. It started when they went to Jill and Dan's for tea, where Sam seemed to bask in Jill's warmth, as Chris knew she would.

The four of them had hit it off, had said they would get together again very soon, and Dan had then suggested supper and a movie one night. He said he had some tickets to a sneak preview of
Castaway
with Tom Hanks. Chris had looked at Sam, expecting her to do as she always did, and decline on the basis that she wouldn't trust a baby-sitter to look after George, but to his surprise she nodded enthusiastically.

During the journey home it was as if someone had brought Sam back to life. She was bubbly, talkative, and actually laughed. Spontaneously. Three times! Chris felt all his anger melt away as he looked at her with affection, and after they'd got home, bathed George, and put him to bed, Sam, for the first time since George, initiated sex.

And not only that, she was an animal. She couldn't get enough. Chris had always taken the lead, but suddenly Sam was growling with lust and contorting her body into positions he'd never even heard of.

It was fucking amazing.

Little did Chris know that while Sam was kissing his lips, she was thinking of Dan. While moaning with pleasure as she licked his left nipple, she was imagining Dan. While trailing a tongue down his stomach, she was dreaming of Dan.

She closed her eyes and let lust wash over her body, vaguely conscious of not calling out Dan's name, but picturing him with every moan, every shiver of lust, experiencing a passion she didn't think existed for her anymore. Afterward, when Chris had gone to sleep and Sam was lying in bed, eyes wide open, staring at the ceiling, she indulged in an elaborate fantasy about Dan falling head over heels in love with her, leaving Jill, and Lily. She, Dan, and George would live happily ever after. Who knows, maybe even Jill and Chris would get together. . . . Stranger things had happened.

She ran over every possibility, thought through every outcome, while Chris tossed and turned next to her, and when she eventually went to sleep at two o'clock in the morning she had a smile on her face.

The
next few days are filled with thoughts of Dan. In an odd sort of way her newfound crush has enabled her to be nicer to Chris. She accepts now that she married the wrong man. It's not his fault, it just isn't meant to be, and with that knowledge she is able to treat him with kindness, with courtesy, because he, after all, doesn't know that she is just biding her time.

Surely Dan feels the same way. She spends hours thinking about that afternoon, going over every glance, every laugh, every movement. Remember how he kissed her hello? Surely that's far too intimate a gesture, one he reserves for women he finds overwhelmingly gorgeous. Surely it was just her.

Remember how he came to sit next to her, brushing his thigh against hers? A sign if ever there was one. Remember how he told her the weight suited her? Weight! Suited her! He liked her like this! Definitely flirting. She hugs herself and smiles, a warm glow enveloping her body. He was definitely flirting and he definitely feels the same way.

A part of her half expects him to phone, is disappointed when the phone rings and it's someone else. Each time the bell breaks into the silence she jumps. Each time she picks it up she hesitates before pouting into the receiver, ensuring her voice sounds sensual and provocative.

“Hello,” she purrs as the phone rings this morning, praying it's Dan, praying he's been thinking about her as much as she's been thinking about him.

“Hello. It's me. What's the matter?” It's Chris.

“Nothing's the matter. Why?”

“You sound peculiar. You didn't sound like you.”

“And who else could I possibly sound like?”

“To be honest you sounded a bit like the rabbit in the Caramac ad.”

A smile spreads itself upon her face. That is exactly the effect she had intended. “Did I?” Her voice is innocence itself. “How flattering. I must try and make my voice sound like that more often.”

“Hmmm. Sounds very interesting.” Chris smiles, thinking of his gorgeous sexy wife in bed the other night. “Could produce unexpectedly nice results.”

“Is everything okay?” Her voice is back to normal. Sam has no wish to encourage Chris's lustful thoughts mid morning.

“Yup. I've just spoken to Jill. The
Castaway
tickets are for six-fifteen on Sunday night, which means we can go for supper afterward. Jill suggested Montana.”

“Great!” The enthusiasm is back in Sam's voice as she starts to plan, already, what to wear. “Sounds lovely.”

“And you definitely think your mum's not going to pull one of her numbers and claim to be busy on the night?”

“No. I made her swear. She's definitely going to baby-sit, but we have to be back by eleven.”

“Eleven?” Chris lets out a long whistle. “Christ. That's a bit late, isn't it?”

Sam allows herself a smile. “Eight o'clock seems to be bloody late in our household at the moment.”

“I'm glad you said that and not me.”

“Why? You're usually the one who says it. What's the difference?”

“The difference is that when I say it you start having a go at me about how I don't understand how tired you are.”

“Well, you don't,” Sam bristles, but Chris refuses to be drawn.

“Sam, we don't have to have an argument now.”

She huffs and puffs to herself for a bit, but hard as it is to back down from a really good fight, she concedes on this one. After all, she has more important things to think about.

Like what do you wear when you're going to be seeing the man who could turn out to be the love of your life?

Black
trousers. (Still left over from maternity but they'll do.)

Burgundy crushed-velvet tunic top, but surprisingly flattering and low-cut to show off a sumptuous cleavage. (New purchase.)

Black high-heeled boots to add a few much needed inches. (New purchase.)

The other things you do before seeing the man who could turn out to be the love of your life?

You make an appointment at the hairdresser's, and finally say a tearful good-bye to your long blond curls that worked so well when you were in your twenties and your hair was thick and lustrous, but has become stringy and greasy now that you have had a baby, and is beginning to have a distinct whiff of mutton dressed as lamb.

You wheel your baby son off to the gym and park him in the creche while you pay a disgusting amount of money for a year's membership (you could pay monthly by direct debit and stop the direct debits when you—inevitably—stop going after six weeks, but you figure that if you pay it all in one go you'll feel so guilty you'll go every day for the rest of your life).

You make an appointment at the beauty salon in the gym. You decide to have your legs waxed, your mustache electrolyzed, and a full Clarins makeover while you're at it. A flash of guilt hits you when the beautician smiles and says your husband is in for a treat, and for a moment you're tempted to tell her everything—isn't it so much easier to confide in a stranger, and isn't there something so comforting about a woman in a white coat—but you manage to keep quiet about the love of your life.

You drive down to Sainsbury's in Camden Town and stock up with Weight Watchers for Heinz ready-made meals, Go Ahead chocolate caramel bars, 98 percent fat-free caramel rice cakes, and Too Good to Be True slices of cheese. By the time you hit checkout you realize that Go Ahead did not mean eating three individually wrapped cake bars while pushing your trolley around the aisles, so reluctantly you put back the cheese and the rice cakes, and go back to the fruit section, where you virtuously replace the goodies with grapefruit and apples.

You walk along Hampstead High Street in a state, cursing designers who are cutting so much smaller these days. (There's no way you're bigger than a size 12. No way. Those bloody designers are just trying to encourage skinny people to shop there.) Eventually you console yourself with the perfect pair of high-heeled boots (Nine West), made even better by the gorgeous top in Monsoon that has your name written all over it, and turns out to be a perfect fit.

You ring your best friend, who has turned into a party animal and is currently painting New York red, and leave desperate messages on her machine, begging her to call you because you have to tell someone or you might just possibly burst.

When your best friend doesn't call, you drag your old telephone book from out of the drawer and flick through looking for someone, anyone, to call to share your good fortune. But then you realize how inappropriate it would be to phone someone you haven't spoken to for months to blurt out the tale of your desperately unhappy marriage, and the reason for your newfound happiness.

So you pile your child into his buggy (yet again), and push the buggy up Mansfield Road toward the Green, and you park it just inside the doorway of a café (you would sit outside but a gloomy, wet early December is not the most conducive for an outdoor cappuccino, no matter how hot the cup), and you sit your son in a high chair and give him a bottle of juice and a reduced-sugar rusk to keep him quiet, and you daydream.

 “Excuse
me? Is anyone sitting here?” Sam's reverie is interrupted by a tall woman with a BabyBjorn strapped to her stomach, a tiny newborn baby barely visible but quiet, presumably fast asleep.

Sam gives her a smile and nods, although she isn't entirely sure she wants her space invaded. Not today. Yet isn't this what she's been hoping for these past few months? Hasn't she been longing for a local friend with a baby? Someone who looks very much like this woman? Why did it have to happen today when she is busy thinking about other things, happy to sit here alone, lost in her thoughts of Dan?

“I am deeply envious.” The woman sits with a smile as she deftly unclips the BabyBjorn and shrugs a pale lemon snowsuit off a still-sleeping infant. She gestures at George, who's happily gumming down on the rusk, babbling away to himself, looking around the room at all the faces. “We're still at the screaming-all-night phase and I'm longing to get her out of this bloody BabyBjorn and into a high chair.”

Sam smiles, warming to the woman, clearly remembering those days with George. “It's not all fun and games. He's about to start crawling and I won't be able to leave him for a second.”

The waitress comes over. “I'll have a cappuccino,” the woman says. The waitress looks at Sam questioningly, and Sam orders another one, settling in for a while, curious to find out a bit more about this woman.

“You look sort of familiar,” Sam says. “Are you local?”

“Yup. Estelle Road. You?”

“Oak Village.”

“God, that's so lovely. I'm completely in love with those chocolate-box houses. Are they as gorgeous on the inside as they look?”

“Gorgeous,” Sam laughs. “But size isn't one of their bonuses.”

“Ah yes. I can see that. Our house is one of those boring old Victorian terraces, but it's huge on the inside. God, doesn't that sound awful? Actually it was my boyfriend's house before, so I'm allowed to still be slightly awed by the size of it. I probably look familiar to you just by being local. Christ, the only thing that keeps me sane right now is getting out of the house and going for a four-hour walk. Anything to shut this little angel up for a while.”

Sam laughs at her honesty. “I don't know. I've got a feeling I've seen you somewhere else, but maybe it is just local. So how old is your little angel . . . a little girl, I take it?”

“Yup. This is Poppy. She's seven weeks. Yours?”

“George. Nearly eight months.”

“University College Hospital?”

“Of course. Yours?”

“Yup. We were going to go up the road but then heard they'd had a few staffing problems.”

“I heard the same thing,” Sam murmurs in agreement. “Someone I know had a cesarean and no one even came to look at her for about twenty-four hours. Her boyfriend ended up changing her sheets and bringing her food from home. Can you imagine?”

“I heard that as well!” The woman starts to laugh. “A friend of a friend. I think her name was Eleanor.”

“Nope,” Sam says, grinning. “This one was called Janine.” The woman laughs. “Do you think it's become one of those apocryphal stories?”

“I don't know, but don't urban myths usually involve something horribly embarrassing like passing out after you've weed in your boyfriend's parents' bathroom sink?”

“Oh God! I remember that one! My favorite was always the girl who pooed onto the conservatory roof when her boyfriend's parents were eating lunch.”

They both laugh. “It really happened!” Sam insists with mock-seriousness.

“Oh really? Was it . . . you?” and they both laugh again.

“Isn't it weird how they always seem to involve a boyfriend's parents?” the woman said. “Who the hell thinks of these things anyway?”

“Who the hell knows?”

“Who the hell cares?” and they both smile at one another, somehow each knowing that this is more than just coincidence, that they were somehow fated to meet this afternoon, and that this will be the start of an important friendship.

They may not know very much about one another—they don't even know one another's names—but already Sam can see she might have found her NBF—New Best Friend—and she may not be quite the same as Julia (who Sam still misses on a daily basis), but she's a pretty close match.

“I'm Sam,” Sam says, knowing that she no longer has desperation etched on her forehead, knowing that this woman won't be scared off by premature offerings of friendship.

“It's nice to meet you, Sam.” The woman extends her hand and Sam shakes it firmly. “I'm Maeve.”

 “I could
not believe it,” she squeals to Chris when he comes home. “I mean, what was I supposed to have said?” Just because Chris was not her soulmate, and she'd buggered up her marriage slightly by marrying the wrong man, did not mean that they couldn't be friends, and Sam was itching to gossip with someone.

The only people other than Chris in whom she could confide were Julia and Bella, and Julia, obviously, wasn't exactly an option at this point. She would have been a wonderful option had Sam hated Maeve, and had she been able to phone Julia and tell her she'd met the ghastly Maeve and listen to what a bitch she is, and my God she's so ugly, she's positively evil, but of course she couldn't say any of that.